Election Timing and Public Policy
Election Timing and Public Policy
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DOI：
10.1561/100.00010070
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发表时间：
2011-01-01
影响因子：
1.7
通讯作者：
Gersen, Jacob E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Berry, Christopher R.;Gersen, Jacob E.
美国地方政府中有近50万民选官员，即使在同一个州内，地方选举的时间也有很大差异。一些地方选举与主要的联邦和州竞选同时举行，而另一些地方选举则在没有更高级别的选举的情况下举行。我们通过利用20世纪80年代加州选举法的变化来分析选举时机的影响，该法规允许学区将选举从不定期改为定期。由于我们能够观察到选举时间的变化导致选区内选民投票率的巨大变化，所以我们能够隔离投票率对政策结果的影响，包括教师工资和学生成绩测试。我们的分析表明，虽然选举时间会导致选民投票率的戏剧性变化，但由此导致的公共政策变化在规模上并不大，在统计上也不强劲。
There are nearly half a million elected officials in American local governments, and the timing of local elections varies enormously even within the same state. Some local elections are held simultaneously with major federal and state races, while others are held at times when no higher level elections coincide. We analyze the effect of election timing by exploiting a 1980s change in the California Election Code, which allowed school districts to change their elections from off-cycle to on-cycle. Because we are able to observe very large within-district changes in voter turnout resulting from changes in election timing, we are able to isolate the effect of turnout on policy outcomes, including teacher salaries and student achievement tests. Our analysis demonstrates that while election timing produces dramatic changes in voter turnout, resulting changes in public policy are modest in size and not robust statistically.